Every Secret Thing
by Michele McNally
Summary: He told me he loved me. I think he meant it. But now everything was different. Now he was going to kill me." The sequel to "Stockholm."


Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first story, "Stockholm." This is the first fanfiction I've done in a very long time and your feedback has been immensely helpful.

A note on the title: "Every Secret Thing" is the title of Patty Hearst's book. For anyone who doesn't know, Patty Hearst's is the most famous case of Stockholm Syndrome.

**Disclaimer:** "Heroes" is the property of NBC, no disrespect is intended in the posting of this story.

**Every Secret Thing**

by Michele McNally

I knew him well enough to know that he didn't want to be a monster. But I also knew him well enough to know that he was one.

He left me for days at a time, sometimes weeks. He came home covered in blood. And suddenly, he could do new things. He would show them to me, proud of them as if he'd made them out of clay. He never said it, but I knew how he got these new abilities.

But he brought me sushi. And he read to me. He played board games with me. He decorated my bedroom with flowers that died almost instantly for lack of sun. And very rarely, when he thought I was asleep, he would cry.

It had been six months since I'd met Gabriel Grey, who called himself Sylar when he wasn't at home with me. So it had been six months since I had felt the sun or the wind or talked to any human being besides him. And the sick part? The truly disgusting part that kept me awake on the nights when he wasn't in the bed holding me?

I was happy.

Every moment he was gone, I waited for him to come back. If he left the door to my bomb shelter home unlocked, I wouldn't walk out. If I left this place I don't know what I would do. I would have no place to go, no one to turn to. There was nothing for me out there. Everything I needed was here in this little home that Gabriel had built for me. For us.

I had a television now. No connection, but I had a VCR and videotapes of the old Disney animated films that I used to watch as a kid. He would bring me fresh groceries and I would cook meals for us. Sometimes I baked.

He told me he loved me. I think he meant it.

But now everything was different.

Now he was going to kill me.

***

The first time it happened, he wasn't at home. That fact probably saved my life, because I was so afraid that I screamed, and I wouldn't have been able to come up with an explanation.

I had been asleep. I was dreaming of him, the way I always do when he is away. My alarm clock went off and I opened my eyes, and all of a sudden I was falling.

The bed hit the floor with a thud so loud that I was sure it had cracked the cement floor. It had been floating in the air. I screamed, and when I realized what had happened, I began to laugh.

It must have been him. He was here. He was home. I got up out of the bed like it was Christmas morning and ran into the other room, but he wasn't there.

He wasn't anywhere.

I had made the bed float.

Once I realized what I'd done, I went into a frenzy. I ran back into the bedroom and stripped the mattress, as if the sheets could hold evidence of my transgression. The bed had moved away from the wall, and I almost gave myself a hernia pushing it back into place. I scrubbed the sheets in scalding water and hung them over the shower curtain to dry.

While they were hanging in the next room, I curled up in the middle of the bare mattress. There was no use dancing around the issue: I had made the bed float with my mind, only I had no idea how I'd done it. What I didn't know about people with abilities could fill the Grand Canyon, and Gabriel had been extremely closed-mouthed about it every time I'd asked him. I didn't know why some people could do things and some people couldn't. Were they born that way? Or could abilities pass from person to person like a head-cold? I had been living in close quarters with one of these people for half a year now.

Could Gabriel have given me powers?

There was a book on the floor in the middle of the room. I stared at it until my hands were clenched into shaking fists, trying to get it to move. If I could only life the cover, turn a page, slide it across the rug a few inches, then I would know that I wasn't going crazy.

But it didn't move.

And neither did I for a very long time.

Gabriel came back that night. By the time I heard the heavy metal locks clicking open, I'd already restored the bedroom to full order. The moment I heard the door open I ran into the living room and launched myself into his arms where he stood in the doorway.

He returned the hug securely, though not with equal ferocity. The look in his eyes as he shut the door was cautious. Honestly, six months and I haven't tried to run yet. What made him think I'd start now?

"I'm so glad you're home!" I told him.

He was blood-free tonight, which was a huge relief. The nights he came home stained with gore were always downers, and we'd been in the midst of a very important game of Monopoly the last time he'd left. I was winning, and I'd kept the board exactly how we'd left it, in hopes of finishing.

He looked at me strangely, and for a moment I thought that he knew. It was as if he could see it written on my face, and then I realized that that was a very real possibility. After all, he never told me what kind of powers he had. Maybe he could read minds. But I couldn't ask him. I'd tried. He was Al Pacino, I was Diane Keaton, and I couldn't ask him about his business.

"What?" I asked.

He cocked his head and smiled, small but genuine, and I relaxed a little bit. "You haven't noticed?" he asked.

I was about to ask him what he was talking about, and suddenly it registered that he'd only hugged me with one hand; the other was hidden behind his back. And then I smelled it. It was deep-fried, high-calorie greatness.

McDonald's.

Nirvana in a grease-stained bag.

"I love you!" I shouted, throwing my arms around his neck once more.

Dinner was normal. A lot of my life nowadays was normal. We ate fries and talked about his day. He didn't tell me everything, but he described the weather to me in detail, like explaining a Monet to a blind woman. I appreciated it.

I cleared the table. Gabriel sat back in his chair and watched me with pride at how domestic I was.

"Gabriel," I began, "I have a question for you."

"Okay."

I knew he heard the apprehension in my voice. The tentativeness, the hesitation. Whatever the proper term is for my not wanting the following question to result in a blow to the head.

"I know that you have more abilities then other people…" So far, so good. Fists unclenched, all glassware in the immediate vicinity whole. "And I know that you…get new abilities from time to time."

He stood. His back was to me and I could see the tension in his back muscles. I cut off my train of thought immediately, but it was already too late. He took a big breath, and then Sylar turned around.

"Why are you asking me this?"

He was staring at me and I struggled to find an answer that was true, but that wouldn't give me away.

"I want to know," I said. "Do you think it's possible for you to give me an ability?"

Suddenly his face softened. "Is that what this is about?" Gabriel asked. He walked over to me and put the dishes I was holding in the sink. Then he took me by the shoulders and sat me back down at the table.

"Maggie," he said kindly. "I know this must be hard for you. All around you people are developing these amazing abilities, and yet you remain painfully ordinary." He smoothed a piece of hair away from my face. "But trust me, it's better that you don't have an ability."

"I wouldn't leave you," I assured him. "Even if I could do things."

He shook his head. "That's not what I'm talking about." He walked a few paces away from me and shifted his weight. He looked like people do in the movies, just before they drop some giant revelation that changes the entire plot of the movie.

Gulp.

"Part of my ability induces an intense…hunger. A need for more power. It's unrelenting. It drives me to do things…" He trailed off. I thought of the many nights he'd come home covered in blood. "When I see an ability that I want, I covet it. I have to have it. At any price."

I was the closest he'd ever come to admitting that he killed people for their abilities. I always knew that was what was happening, but it never occurred to me that it was something he couldn't control. When I'd first come here I'd feared for my life, but after all our time together, I'd thought, foolishly, that if I were ever on the receiving end of his murderous rage, he wouldn't hurt me. I thought that he cared too much about me to ever let anything happen to me. But he'd made it pretty clear. If I had an ability he wouldn't even see the girl he'd taken care of for the past six months. I would just be the obstacle keeping him from his shiny new toy.

He turned back to me and smiled. "Luckily, we don't have to worry about that."

It took me just a second too long to return his smile.

He noticed.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I couldn't lie to him. Not because he always seemed to know when I was lying. It was because he was all I had, and I couldn't bring myself to hold anything back. Anything I tried not to tell him would creep back into my head the moment he left, and swirl around in front of my eyes and wake me up in the middle of the night.

With Gabriel, I was always honest.

"I'm afraid of you sometimes," I told him.

He nodded. He was psychotic and sociopathic, but he wasn't deluded. He knew exactly why I would be afraid of him. "You know that I don't want to hurt you," he told me.

Ah. There it is.

I don't want to hurt you.

Not, "I will never hurt you." Not, "I'm sorry for the times I've hurt you."

He doesn't _want_ to hurt me.

He doesn't want to squeeze my arms until they bruised.

He doesn't want to leave me without knowing if he would ever come back.

He doesn't want to kill me.

But that doesn't mean he won't.

He seemed to know that his answer hadn't reassured me, but he had nothing else to offer me. I managed a tiny smile, and he placed his hands on either side of my face and gently kissed the tip of my nose.

"I love you," he said.

I sighed. As always, when he said those words, they never sounded completely true. But he tried his hardest to say it so that I could believe it, and I think he wished he did. So I took it in with gratitude, and I closed my eyes. And then the hands on my face were not Sylar's hands. The breath on my face was not his breath. This was the breath, and these were the hands of some safe, simple, morally unambiguous man who loved me out of genuine emotion, not just because he felt dominion over me.

These were not the lips of a man who would kill me when he found out what I was. They moved against mine far too tenderly to have ever spoken words other than love and comfort. With my eyes closed, my fear began to melt. It had been almost a week since I'd seen him last, and I'd missed him. His touch was burning against my skin. I inhaled his scent. He was warm and familiar.

"I missed you," I said, and he wrapped his arms around me. I felt myself being lifted off the chair and I raised my arms to protest. "The dishes."

He laughed. "Leave them. I'll do them after."

He picked me up like in the movies, sweeping me up into his arms and carried me into the bedroom. He kicked the door open, kissing me the entire way, and laid me down on the bed. But I wasn't about to let him get off that easily.

I squirmed out from under him and he lay back on the pillows with a grin. I crawled over him and straddled his hips, kissing his face and neck and I unbuttoned his shirt. He sat up so that I could slip it off his arms, and when he lay back down I grabbed his wrists and pinned them up above his head. I shot him a sly grin and he smirked. He looked patronizing, like a parent whose child was pointing a toy gun at him.

"Oh no," he whispered with false enthusiasm, "I'm helpless."

I giggled while I kissed his neck, biting down on his earlobe.

He moaned. "Please be gentle."

Sleeping with Gabriel was never routine. He was a different person each time he came to my bed. These moments when he allowed me to take control were rare, and I loved them. I knew he was only pretending, that I couldn't do anything that he didn't allow. But I liked having him at my mercy, however artificially. He kept his hands above his head while I slipped my dress over mine.

He looked hungrily at my naked body. "You are so beautiful," he said.

Adrenaline was pumping. I fucking LOVED this game. I grabbed his face with my right hand and forced him to look at me. "Shut up!" I growled.

His eyes flew open in surprise. For one moment I thought I'd gone too far, but then he laughed, and his hands came down and grabbed my hips. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and pressed his bare chest against mine. With one hand he stroked the hollow between my breasts, and wrapped his hand around my throat.

He didn't squeeze. He didn't create any pressure that would cause me discomfort. He just held me still, and drew me in for a kiss.

The first time he'd done it, I'd been afraid. I'd thought he'd been about to kill me, or that he was one of those freaky people who liked to be strangled during sex, or wear furry bear costumes.

But now that I was used to it, I liked it. It was comforting. To have his strong hand wrapped around the most vulnerable part of me made me feel safe, surrounded, swaddled in a steel blanket. He was like an asbestos shield, protecting and poisoning me at the same time.

He took his hand away and I whimpered at the feel of the empty air around my neck. He leaned in and kissed me gently on the collarbone, and then he took my hand and placed it around his own throat. My tiny hand barely wrapped around the muscles of his neck, and once again not registering that this was only the illusion of power, I felt touched at the trust he was implicating in the gesture.

I pushed him down onto the pillows. "Stay," I told him.

I slid down his body and began to undo his belt. He reached down to help me and I slapped his hands away. He laughed. If I didn't want him so badly right now, the smug look on his face might have made me angry.

He was certainly proud of himself for turning me from a corn-fed, Missionary position good-girl into the S&M queen I was becoming.

I got his pants off and sat back to look at him. He was beautiful. He was long and lean and all his limbs were solid with internal muscle, like a gymnast or a swimmer. It was the kind of physique you got when you weren't trying to put on muscle. The dark hair that covered his chest and arms was soft, not wiry like on some men. It tapered off down towards his belly button, and I leaned down to kiss his flat stomach. I curled my hands into claws and raked my nails gently down his thighs, and brushed the tips of my long hair along his stomach.

I kissed a trail all the way down his right thigh and back up again, making sure as I ran my tongue up his inner thigh that the side of his shaft just barely brushed my cheek. I breathed hot air out onto his hardness and his hips bucked slightly.

I looked up at him. He was looking down at me with hungry dark eyes, but he was still playing along and keeping his hands above his head, allowing me to torture him. I wondered how far I could push him.

Never breaking eye contact, I licked him once along his entire length. I could see the change in his eyes, but he had no visible reaction other than a sharp breath in through his nose. I wanted more than that, and so I pursed my lips and gently blew clod air over the moist trail I'd just left on the underside of his cock.

He shivered, and he closed his eyes.

The second his eyes shut I closed my mouth around him and swirled my tongue around the head. I felt the mattress jump as his hands snapped down and his fist balled in the sheet.

I stopped.

His eyes flew open in surprise, but before he could question why I stopped, I took his wrists and threw them back above his head. When I was sure he'd gotten the message I let my hand wander down his stomach to stroke him a few times before I bent my head again and wrapped my mouth around him.

He was making soft noises as I moved my mouth and hand up and down his length, squeezing and twisting and sucking and licking. He started to move his hips in rhythm to my movements, and when I could tell he was really getting into it, I slid my mouth off of him and kissed my way back up his body. When I reached him face I grabbed his wrists and held them down as I straddled him.

I was still wearing my underwear, but I knew he could feel the heat and moisture emanating from underneath the thin cotton fabric as I slowly ground against him.

"That's enough," he clipped.

I laughed as all of a sudden I found myself on my back, feeling too many hands on me as he used his powers to position me underneath him. Then the panties were gone; I'd barely registered the sound of tearing fabric a split second before he entered me.

I was wet and ready and offered him no resistance. We both exhaled in relief and he looked down into my eyes, kissing me softly before he began to move.

When I'd first come here, this Gabriel existed only in my dreams. I didn't think Sylar was capable of showing this kind of tenderness. It didn't happen too often, and when it did, I savored it. Privately, I thought it was a little funny.

In may experience, most guys I've been with have kept the kinky stuff under wraps until he'd been sleeping with me for a little while. They all want you to think they prefer to make sweet, passionate, English Patient love to you every time. Every once in a while we'd get drunk and something especially dirty would come flying out of nowhere, but the guy was almost always embarrassed the next morning. And I was raised to be polite; I knew better than to come out and say, "So, you like your hair pulled, huh?"

So I would just shelve these little bits and pieces until a little later on. And then maybe give his hair a little tug a few nights later and see what kind of reaction I got.

With Gabriel, it was the exact opposite. It was as if he wanted me to think that he didn't need to be gentle. He wanted it to be dirty from the very beginning. And as we spent more and more nights together, occasionally he would slip, and a moment of genuine tenderness would present itself. I knew better than to say anything.

Tonight was one of those nights I'd never mention again. He was moving slowly, building me up as much as himself, holding back so that he wouldn't come too quickly, and looking into my eyes the entire time. I'd clearly gotten him pretty worked up, and I knew he was working hard. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feel of him inside me, giving myself up to the sensations. I could feel my own excitement beginning to mount and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

He twitched a little when I squeezed him with my thighs.

"Not so fast," he whispered huskily. "You're coming with me."

He started using his telekinesis then, sending feather-light strokes over my clit and I started to lose it. I moaned his name.

"Maggie," he whispered from above me. "I'm close, look at me."

I opened my eyes and I screamed, but not from pleasure. Behind Gabriel's head, books and pillows and all sorts of things were floating in the air. His attention was elsewhere; this was clearly my doing. My entire body went numb as abject horror swept through my veins. I tensed. Gabriel shuddered and collapsed on top of me with a cry, and all the floating objects crashed down to the floor.

I lay perfectly still, afraid that if I moved, something else would start to float and reveal me as the freak that I was. Nothing happened, except that Gabriel pulled himself off of me and rolled over onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling and I tucked myself into his side.

After a moment I closed my eyes.

"What happened?"

His soft, wary voice was as hard as steel. My heart immediately began racing, even though I knew he could hear it.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He sat up so roughly that his shoulder knocked against my head as I fell back into the mattress. He sat there for a moment and then he turned to look at me, his eyes burning.

"Did you come?" Sylar asked.

I knew that he would see right through me. I knew that the least he would do to me was demand an explanation. I didn't know exactly what he would do to me when I couldn't give him one. But nonetheless, I lied.

"Yes."

And then he was gone.

***

I could not believe I'd gotten off so easily. He'd just left. He'd walked out of the room, and a few moments later I'd heard the door. He hadn't yelled. He hadn't hurt me.

And he must have come back sometime early the next morning, because there was a shopping bag in the kitchen when I woke up. It was filled with a few household items that I needed. Shampoo, milk, tampons, that sort of thing. He hadn't brought it yesterday, and though I was glad he hadn't forgotten the fresh milk, my heart fell a little when I saw the shampoo. My current bottle was still half-full. He obviously didn't intend to return for a while.

I put away the groceries and I noticed that, true to his promise last night, the dishes were done.

It was the sight of the clean dishes that make me realize why he'd left after he detected my lie. Why he'd stormed out before his rage caused him to hurt me or worse: Despite how rehearsed it sounded each time it came out of his mouth, Gabriel really must love me.

So maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wouldn't automatically murder me when he found out that I'd developed an ability. As I put away the shampoo and the rest of the toiletries, it seemed entirely possible that if he was capable of stopping himself from hurting me last night, maybe he could restrain himself again. After all, all I'd done so far was move something with my mind. He could already do that. Maybe he wouldn't want my ability the way he wanted others.

And now that I had this ability, I would have to learn how to use it. Maybe he would teach me, be my mentor. Maybe having something constructive to concentrate on would be the key to his rehabilitation. I could help him get better. He wouldn't have to kill, he wouldn't have to keep me here. He and I could get an apartment somewhere and make this charade of domesticity a beautiful reality, and we could get a dog and a garden and I could grow tomatoes for fresh summer salads, and we would grow old together until the day we curl up together on the hammock, surrounded by friends and family, and the breath eases from our bodies and we die as we have lived, together in harmony.

La, la, la.

But I would settle for him not eviscerating me.

But even if Gabriel and I didn't suddenly turn into a match made in heaven, suddenly having an ability didn't seem as bad as I'd thought.

Of course, then I opened the cabinet underneath the sink and I realized that it was actually much worse.

Gabriel, who maintained an almost gross awareness of my body's cycles, had considerately included a box of tampons in the grocery bag he'd dropped off that morning. I'd gone to put them away and discovered that the box he'd bought me last month was still there, unopened.

Unused.

I did some math.

Then I repeated the words, "Oh, shit," for three and a half minutes.

I wasn't special. I wasn't developing an ability. I was pregnant.

Balls.

***

Ironically, the moment I'd discovered my delicate condition also heralded the arrival of my morning sickness. These two things might have been related, but whatever the cause, I revisited the previous night's McDonald's, this time in reverse.

I spent the next month vomiting and sweating and having nightmares. Not the way I wanted to spend my last few days on Earth. For the first time, I didn't spend every waking moment waiting for Gabriel to return. Instead I jumped at every noise, dreading the moment when Sylar would walk through the door.

I didn't know how he would react. I ran through almost every scenario in my head. Nine times out of ten, I ended up murdered. Sometimes not as horribly as others.

But it was a tough one to call. There was a tiny part of me that thought he might not think it was all bad news. I had changed since being here, and he always seemed so perversely proud when I reacted to him with acceptance rather than resistance. Maybe he would like the idea of me being pregnant with his child. Maybe having his baby would seem to him like when I opened myself up to his exploring fingers. There was the slightest chance, however remote, that he would be proud.

More likely though, he would kill me horribly.

Sylar was not a baby person. Sylar did not do diapers. He wouldn't test the temperature of the milk on his wrist. I couldn't picture him helping to build the bassinet.

And my baby had abilities.

That was how I'd made the bed float. That was the cause of all my spontaneous bursts of telekinesis. It was never something I could control, and never seemed to have a particular pattern to them. It wasn't me, it was my baby. And if that was true, then it was only a matter of time before Sylar killed him and took his powers.

I wondered how old he'd let him get.

He.

I'd apparently decided that my baby was a boy.

Would he have Gabriel's dark eyes in addition to his telekinesis? Would he have the same nose? The same definitive eyebrows? Would have Gabriel's smooth melodic voice?

More importantly, would he have Sylar's lust to kill? Was I growing a tiny serial killer inside of me? Maybe the world would be better off if I threw myself down a flight of stairs right now, if I only had access to one.

But I could feel him inside of me. I was just imagining it; it was way too early for me to feel any actual movement. It was like having someone talk about lice and feeling your head start to itch. If I closed my eyes and pressed my hand to my stomach, I could almost feel him growing.

I mean don't get me wrong, I was Pro-Choice, but this was me. This wasn't some other woman with some other unplanned baby. This was MY baby. I couldn't just get rid of him and go on pretending that it never happened, even if I did have the means to do so. That would be as bad as Sylar killing my baby for his ability.

Escape was the only slim possibility I had left.

I examined the door. There were six locks, all done from the outside. I wondered if there were even keys; he could probably turn them with his mind. I wouldn't be able to break out.

So what else could I do?

I knew by now that Sylar had the ability to heal. If I were to lie in wait just inside the door with a kitchen knife in my hand, even if I did manage to hit him at all, it might not distract him long enough for me to get out the door.

I didn't even know what was on the other side of the door. I'd been unconscious when he'd brought me in a hundred years ago. It didn't open to the outside world. For all I knew my prison was in the basement of some huge building, and that door led to a maze of hallways and stairwells. And if I did actually make it outside, I was clearly in an isolated area. I could be in the middle of the desert somewhere. Maybe I'd be wandering along some abandoned highway for days before someone found me.

And even if I could do all this, could I do it in the fifteen seconds it would take Sylar to heal from the neck wound I'd inflicted at the start?

But what other option did I have?

I didn't have a bag. I didn't even have shoes. The best I could do was pile clothing and food on top of one of my dresses. I wrapped it up and tied it with a hair ribbon. There were no water bottles, nothing portable. I rinsed some leftover soup out of a plastic container and filled it with water instead.

I hid the bundle behind the door and got a knife. The biggest knife I had was used to chop onions for dinners I'd made my kidnapper. Now I clutched it in my hand as I crouched down next to the door, listening for him.

After six hours and several serious leg cramps, I began to sense the flaw in my plan. I had no idea when Sylar would be coming home.

He'd already been gone for a month. A tiny part of me hoped he'd be home any day now, but I had no way of knowing. I couldn't bring myself to leave my post; afraid I'd miss my chance. Those first few seconds after he opened the door would be my only window.

I didn't shower or change my clothes. I slept with my head against the door, waking up at any sound. I hardly ate, drinking straight from the tap because it was closer to the door than the refrigerator.

Mercifully, it was only three days before he returned.

I heard the first of the locks click and I jumped to my feet. My legs burned in protest, my stomach lurched and my head swam. My fist closed around the knife at my side and the door opened.

Sylar walked into the room silently. As if handing me my escape on a silver platter, he didn't close the door right away. He kept one hand on the handle but he just stood there with it open, staring into the room. I had a clear shot at the back of his neck.

Move.

My arm wouldn't obey. Suddenly the 3oz knife in my hand weighted three tons, and I couldn't lift it if my life depended on it, which it did. For a fleeting second I thought he was using his powers to hold me down, but he wasn't even aware of me.

This was me.

The vulnerable flesh of the back of his neck practically had runway lights laid out of either side of it, and I couldn't even breathe.

Move.

Do something.

I just stood there for the five precious seconds it took him to realize something was wrong and shut the door.

He took one step into the room and then spun around to find me. Presumably by the sound of my heartbeat, although I could have sworn it had stopped. But there I was, wide-eyed and shaking, my hair greasy, my face tear-streaked.

The knife still in my hand.

And to make matters worse, the first expression that crossed his face when he saw my condition was concern. It was the look he might have given me if I'd woken up from a nightmare to find myself in his arms. It was the look any man gave to a crying woman. Concern, mixed with a tiny drop of fear.

It was genuine. It betrayed his actual feelings from me. It was a look like this that reminded me that "I love you" was no longer the sexy lie it had been the first time I'd said it to him. Buried somewhere deep within the serial killer that had brought me here was a man that I had genuine feelings for as well.

Gabriel. My Gabriel.

And then he saw the knife, and my Gabriel disappeared.

"What's going on here?"

I couldn't speak. His voice had lost any trace of warmth. It was cold and flat and there was nothing I could say that would reassure him. I let go of the knife. I didn't want him to make me use it against myself. It fell to the floor with a clatter, but he didn't even glance twice at it. He just kept looking at me as if I was suddenly going to come up with a perfectly logical explanation as to why I was waiting to ambush him with a knife. And what completely broke my heart was that he looked hopeful that I would.

The rage I'd expected, but I wasn't prepared for the betrayal.

His eyes fell to the bundle of clothes on the floor behind me. Ashamed, I moved out of the way as he knelt to inspect it. He found the food, the water I'd packed in preparation for my running away, and he sighed. He closed his eyes, and stayed squatting on the floor for a moment, taking slow, even breaths.

I sat at the table, waiting for death and feeling slightly satisfied that at least he seemed sad to have to kill me.

He sat there for a few more minutes. I watched the tension in his back and shoulders and tears welled up in my eyes. I was sad to have to die, I decided, but not afraid. The transition would probably be easy. There would be no friends to miss, no great feats I would suddenly never accomplish. To most of the world, I was dead already. I hadn't seen the sun in over seven months, had been neither seen nor heard by any other person besides Gabriel since that last day at Mike's Diner. I could count on one hand the amount of things that I would be sad to give up once I was dead.

I would miss cheese. It seemed odd to me that this was atop my priorities list, but I'd always found something very comforting about cheese, even more so than chocolate. In the months of my captivity I'd come to appreciate it even more, since it was perishable and I only got it when Gabriel made his grocery runs.

I would miss my dresses. I'd hate them at first. I'd felt disgusted to participate in his fantasy by wearing them. But more time passed and I started to love how delicate and feminine they made me feel. They made me feel beautiful, and like he thought I was beautiful as well.

I would miss Gabriel of course. Not the barely restrained monster kneeling on the floor in front of me; my Gabriel. The man who held my while I was asleep, and traced the outline of my lips with the tip of his index finger. The man whose face had been the only face I'd seen in seven months. Before I'd come here I'd always found comfort in the thought that when I died I would see my parents again. Now it was hard to imagine myself existing any place Gabriel didn't.

Sylar reached down, and picked the knife up off the floor. When he turned around to face me I noticed for the first time that his white shirt was brown with dried blood. I had hoped he'd make it quick, but I knew that he was capable of so much more.

"Answer me." Sylar's eyes were boring into mine.

"I'm sorry." It was the only thing I could think to say. He wasn't satisfied with my response, and grabbed my arms, pulling me up to a standing position. I didn't cry out. I was expecting this kind of reaction. When I didn't react, he shook me. I shut my eyes.

"I don't understand," he said in the same cold, detached voice and I wondered if he was talking to himself. "You were happy with me. I've given you food and shelter and everything you need. Why do you suddenly want to leave?"

"I don't want to…" I started to say, but the sound of my voice startled him so violently out of his thoughts that my throat caught. He seemed to just notice that I was there, and he flung me out of his hands so hard that I crashed into the table and onto the floor.

As I recovered I looked up to see him pacing erratically across the floor, muttering to himself. I pulled myself up and stood in his path.

"Gabriel," I began. He spun around and backhanded me across the face.

I was shocked. Not because he had hit me, but because he had used his hand, and not his mind. I didn't have time to recover from the force of the slap before he grabbed me again, taking a fistful of my hair in his hands. He dragged me across the floor to the bedroom.

"What wasn't good enough for you?" he taunted, ripping open the closet door. He yanked my floral dresses out on by one, ripping some of them, sending their hangers flying through the air. He moved next to the bookcase, throwing the books at me.

"I gave you everything!"

One of the hardcover books hit me in the face. At any moment I expected to be sent hurtling through the air, or be choked by an invisible hand, but he insisted on using his hands. It was like he'd forgotten he had powers. He turned the television over and it crashed to the floor, cracking the screen. He threw my videotapes against the opposite wall. They came nowhere near me, but I found myself cowering as each one hit.

"Please," I said weakly, but he ignored me, continuing on his tirade. He leapt toward me and grabbed me by the shoulders, slamming me with such force against the wall that my head cracked against the stone.

"What changed?" he screamed. "You were safe! You were happy! Why is this suddenly not enough for you?"

"I'm pregnant!" I shrieked.

Everything stopped. The only sound was the quiet sobbing that I could no longer control as my knees buckled and I fell. He didn't try to hold me up, releasing my arms and letting me crumple at his feet. I leaned my head against his legs and cried for a few more moments. He didn't move.

Finally, terrified at what I'd find, I looked up into his face.

He was staring down at me as if he'd never seen me before. After a moment he knelt down in front of me and I flinched. He pulled back a moment until I was satisfied that he wasn't going to hurt me, and then he reached his hand out. I thought he was going to touch the spot on my face where the book had hit; I was sure a purple bruise was already growing. But instead he placed his hand on my stomach. I stayed perfectly still, as if he were a constricting snake curled around one of my limbs. If you struggled, they just tightened their hold.

"You're sure?" he asked. I still couldn't gauge whether he thought this was a good thing or a bad thing.

I nodded.

"Why did you feel like you had to leave me?"

He looked up into my eyes and I realized that I had not cheated death with the shock of my revelation. I had just postponed it. Now I would be forced to tell him that my baby had abilities. Now he would pronounce my death sentence.

"I've been doing things," I admitted. "Things like you can do. I think… I think it's the baby."

He reacted much the way I thought he would in one of my Best Case Scenarios. He stood up suddenly, recoiling from me as if my skin had burned him, and backed up a few paces. His eyes never left mine. I saw him consider the implications in his mind. Then he turned away.

"The baby has abilities," he said with his back to me.

I nodded even though he couldn't see me. It didn't matter. He wasn't looking for confirmation; he knew I hadn't lied.

When he turned back there was a new look on his face. It was full of remorse and I knew that this was the moment when I would breathe my final breath. He stretched his hand out and I waited for the telekinetic blow, but to my surprise he knelt down in front of me again and placed the hand over my mouth and nose.

My body fought instinctively to get the oxygen he was depriving me of, but my mind was relieved that he had found this painless way to end my life. And I was touched that he'd chosen such an intimate way to do it, when he could have killed me from across the room if he wanted to. I put my hand on his face, but not to fight him or claw at him or try to get him to let go.

I just wanted to touch him one last time.

***

Imagine my surprise when I woke up.

I was immediately confronted with sensations that I hadn't been expecting. One: I was breathing. Two: I was wearing shoes. Three: I was clearly in the backseat of a moving car.

My eyes snapped open before I was ready, and the light was burning. Bright sun reflected off of light colored sand, and hurt my sensitive eyes. I jerked my head forward and a seatbelt cut into my neck.

Gabriel was driving. We were heading down a deserted highway, barren wasteland on either side of us as far as I could see. I was right when I'd thought his hide-away had been isolated. If I had managed to escape I probably would have died of thirst before I could come upon civilization.

I pressed my face against the glass. There it was; the world that I had been missing for the past seven months. Sun and sky and birds and trees and telephone poles and it was all whizzing by way too fast for me to memorize it all. Where were we going? Where was he taking me?

I didn't ask. He seemed unaware that I had woken up. I looked over to the seat next to me. There was my jacket and bag. The ones that I had with me the night he'd taken me from outside of the Diner. He'd kept them.

Why would he have kept them unless he'd planned to give them back to me some day?

The shoes, the jeans and T-shirt that I was wearing were brand new. He'd bought them specifically for this purpose.

And it sank in.

He wasn't going to kill me. He was going to let me go.

At that moment, he glanced into the rearview mirror and caught my eye. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I noticed a truck stop up ahead and before I knew it, he was pulling into the parking lot.

He stopped the car and got out. Then he opened the passenger door and sat down next to me.

"I've decided to let you go," he said, quite unnecessarily. I didn't say anything. "You shouldn't try to find me," he continued. "You should get as far away from this place as possible, do you understand?"

I nodded.

It looked like he was about to say something else, but abruptly he leaned across me and opened my door. I stared out into freedom after seven months of living like a slave, and I hesitated. When his hand came off my door handle, I caught it in my own. He let me hold it for a moment, and I took full advantage of his generosity, placing his palm on the side of my face.

Suddenly he pulled my face to him, and kissed me hard, his hands almost crushing my skull with the ferocity of his grip. When he finally released me, I was gasping for breath.

His release came just shy of pushing me away from him and he choked out through clenched teeth, "Go."

He was back in the driver's seat before I'd even set one foot on the gravel of the parking lot. The car peeled out from behind me before I'd had the chance to close the door. I watched the car disappear over the horizon, and I counted to ten, but he didn't come back.

I was free.

Damn him.


End file.
